In the Microwave with Saturn


I read the Farmers Almanac newsletter. And yes, it makes me feel old but also sentimental because my Grandmother always had a copy on the table. And no, I’m not a gardener but damn – the recipes. This morning’s newsletter included Theresa Reed’s article about the beginning of Saturn retrograde.

Astrology isn’t a vibe for me except for the occasional sip of shadenfreude when memes make fun of people in a flap about Mercury retrograde. It seems Saturn is taking Freddy Mercury’s place in the microwave.

I’m feeling this one. Not the Mercury thing, the Saturn thing.

Retrogrades are only frustrating if you are caught up in constant forward striving and wanted to get what you don’t have and get it now. Not everything is about new beginnings, not everything is constant personal growth and forward movement.

Sometimes the energy is about the next phase, not a new beginning.

It is about solidifying and maturing, and is very much attune to this time of year. After the seeds sprout, you have to let them grow up before you can celebrate the harvest.

This isn’t a time of manifesting what you don’t have – this is a time of investing in what you do have. Now is a time to make all you’ve learned solid and real and lasting. It’s about maturing what you’ve already manifested.

“Curing” comes to mind. Not the healing kind of way….in the resin and glue kind. Soaps, resin art, some glues, have to have time to ‘cure’ and become fully solid, durable, usable. It is akin to the aging process in fine wine.

Would you rather climb up on a stack of wobbly boxes or a nailed-together step stool? This week, or even the next several months if this retrograde type vibe holds, is a time to reinforce this new place so it can become a solid foundation for later growth.

We’ve talked a lot over the past several months about leaving what no longer serves. Walking away from the bad entails walking toward the good. Now we are at the next step in the process. We’ve given thoughts and energies to both the past and the future. Now it’s time to invest in here and now. Mindfulness is always good advice. This energy is mindfulness turned up to 11. This is very much a “repair and maintain” energy. This is a time to make it strong where you are.

I hear “invest in this.” Invest time in the here and now. Things will move again, they always do. This is that next phase and new you that you’ve worked toward. Live here for a little while. Incorporate and integrate all that you have learned and achieved so far, whatever that is. And whatever that is – is perfectly good and enough.

See you at the next sip

Today’s Sip: Both Ways

Seven of Pentacles:

“You reap what you sow” cuts both ways.

It is a promise of consequences to your actions, effects that you cause.

It can be a warning of unkindness coming home to roost, but by the same token it can be a promise of good things coming home as well.

Sow well, reap well.

Choose Your Tarot Card 11 Feb 24


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THE FOOL: Sometimes a new beginning is a thousand mile journey that starts with a single step. Other times it’s a thousand foot drop that starts with being shoved off the edge of a cliff. Either way, adaptability is a survival skill.

SEVEN OF PENTACLES: Focus on what you have, not what you don’t.


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You Choose: Tarot Card of the Week 25 March 24

Sage Sips is Tarot in the time it takes to sip your coffee (or whatever you like to sip this time of day)

Seven of Pentacles: Wait. Give the seeds you planted time to grow. Don’t meddle…if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Just wait.

Seven of Swords: Mischief is afoot. Watch your stuff. Don’t fall for phishing. Be on the lookout for petty bs and swat it down if needed.

Nine of Pentacles: Enjoy what you’ve achieved. As one project wraps up, it’s good to take a minute to appreciate what you and your team have done before moving on to the next big thing.

Card doesn’t fit or feel right? Enter the card or any keyword in the search bar on the right side of the page (or scroll down on mobile) to browse the archives. Your message will find you – all you have to do is look and listen.

Tincture of Time

The most difficult and deepest healing

“Time heals all wounds”

Deep healing requires the tincture of time.

Time is often the bitterest pill to swallow in our emotional healing. The slow changes time brings are often the most bittersweet. Patience with ourselves and everyone else is necessary medicine, but often the most difficult to create.

The seven of coins calls us to be patient and let the most difficult medicine of all, time, work its healing magic.


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Advance – in an inward direction

Sage Sips is Tarot wisdom in the time it takes to sip from your coffee.

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Pause, not stop

It’s like the difference between taking a lunch break and quitting your job.

Welcome to TaoCraft Tarot blog and podcast. I’m glad you are here.

Today’s card is the Seven of Pentacles. It picks up on a thread from yesterday’s Ace of Cups. Remember how there was a sense of a seasonal shift in season toward a quieting to balance peak summer. You have to give the seeds time to grow before the harvest can happen.

The same idea applies generally, not just to medieval farmers on Tarot cards. Persistence is important. Perseverance is a key to success.

The other day I was browsing the Psychology Today website (as one does) and stumbled on a review of Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion of Perseverance by Michael Page. Angela Duckworth is a psychologist who studied the psychology of success. She listed the qualities exemplified by successful people in a wide variety of careers and industries. According to the review, grit was defined as perseverance combined with passion and it was more often present then talent or genius. Grit and persistence topped genius and giftedness.

The seven of pentacles is reminding us to protect our grit.

There is a difference between a pause or a short rest and giving up altogether.

The occasional pause to rest and reevaluate is as essential to success as the passion part is essential to the persistence part to create Duckworth’s grit of success.

Blindly, rigidly plowing ahead keeps us from adapting and it can be a recipe for burnout. Even if you manage to persist through the burnout, you lose the passion that is equally a part of the overall success.

This strikes me as the yang side of the four of swords’ rest and contemplation vibe. The four of swords is inwardly contemplative. This card, the seven of pentacles is more outwardly focused, evaluating and assessing and re-evaluating more than meditative. It’s physically quiet but mentally active. This kind of rest is full of evaluation, planning and mentally preparing for the next step (as opposed to more active preparation advice that you might see with the three of wands)

Pentacles represent our relationship to wealth, career, and the physical realm. It is only fitting that a pentacle card would remind us to preserve a key element of long term success.

Take a pause, protect your grit, then get back to persisting.

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See you at the next sip!

Look

TaoCraft Short Sip is Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip your coffee. Today: 7 of pentacles. Feedback is a gift that is payed forward.

Hello and welcome to TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot contemplation for your day in the time it takes to sip from your coffee

Today’s card is the seven of pentacles.

The energy environment has been trying to tell us something for the past few days. We are being asked to pay attention.

If this message came from the major arcana, it would come thundering in on the Chariot card. This is a very similar sort of message but with less hoopla. The Chariot is about being in the present moment and paying attention to your surroundings in the way a test pilot might. Keep your head where you are at or risk slamming into the side of a mountain at mach 1.

Today’s energy is more low key. It is more earthy, grounded, and less urgent, but still important to our well being. You can’t be on Chariot level high alert all of the time. It is important to be present and pay attention to pleasant things too.

I am reminded of that scene from the 1994 version of The Crow with Brandon Lee where Eric Draven said that “Little things used to mean so much to Shelly. I used to think they were kind of trivial. Believe me, nothing is trivial.” Today’s energy reminds us that little things mean a lot and are worthy of our attention.

Instead of a test pilot level “pay attention” message, this is more of a whistling teakettle level of “pay attention” For some reason the word “hygge” (forgive me, I’m not sure how to pronounce it) Comfort comes to mind. Like a cold morning in wooly socks and fixing a cup of your favorite tea kind of comfort. Or in my case this morning, cinnamon spiced coffee.

Yesterday, the king of cups asked us to listen to the subtle hints from intuition. Today the seven of pentacles is asking us to soak in the subtle hints on the physical level.

A few key words for this card include assessment, feedback and planning. That takes information first of all, and attention to things both big and small to do.

It may seem a little self-serving, but the feedback part especially caught my attention.

I had been reading product reviews for something I’d like to get, and it amazes me how tantrum-ish and emotive so many of them are. There wasn’t much substance to many of them. One, however, got my attention. It gave specific details, point by point, how the item differed from the description and made it lesser value for the money spent.

I appreciate what that person said, both as a consumer and as a service provider.

You know that meme that says kindness costs nothing so sprinkle that stuff everywhere? The same is true about feedback. I’ll admit, I delete the eternal spambot surveys from big box stores that are probably going to ignore it anyway, but I try to give feedback for small or local businesses whenever they ask. It costs just a few minutes of time and might be a legitimate help to someone. Thoughtful feedback, attention to little pleasures in life, giving a little time and attention to the mundane everyday things is a gift to the people that receive that information. Thoughtful, calm, kind feedback is a gift that is payed forward when that information is used to make things better for everyone.

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See you at the next Sip

Take A Breath

Thank you for listening, watching and reading TaoCraft Short Sip: Tarot for your day in the time it takes to sip your favorite beverage. Mine is coffee. Thank you all for your support through the virtual coffee tip mug, and all of your likes, subs, shares, and follows. I appreciate you and I am glad you are here.

Today’s card is the seven of pentacles:

Typically, the pentacles are work, career, practical real-world related ideas. Today the energy is more thoughtful than usual. Overall, it feels connected to the Hermit energy that came through for the Quiet Night post a few weeks ago. I’ll link to the blog post in the show notes for those of you listening through the podcast.

Speaking of the podcast – I’m really loving this text to speech automatic conversion thing wordpress and anchor fm has going. It puts the best of me – my writing – into the podcast. I know some people don’t like the robot voice, but I’m just cyberpunk enough to enjoy letting Siri’s second cousin Remy do the heavy lifting with the narration thing.

But back to the seven of pentacles

When I was very young, my father was manager of a local retail store in a small Appalachian town. Other than a mechanical cash register I don’t think they had calculators much less any sort of computer. Every January, it was common for businesses like that to close for a few days in January to take inventory of all of their goods and to go over the books and reconcile everything and who knows what all. I just remember it was a lot of work and a few very long days for dad. They always had inventory clearance sale to get as much stuff out of the store before starting that whole process. That was always a big thing, It’s how I got my favorite mickey mouse umbrella. Yay clearance sales!

There is a little bit of that kind of energy here.

Tarot cards, especially these one card daily meditations, are more helpful when they are put into context.

In a larger, multiple card layout, you get context from the client’s questions and concerns combined with the layout as a whole. That’s why multiple card layouts are more difficult and time consuming to do. Not only do you have more individual cards to interpret, but you have more connections and context to knit together too.

In a single card draw, you can get context from purely intuitive cues, but also, as is the case here, from the environment around you. My attention is drawn to the cold weather, the snow I can see out the window, the time of year, and that memory of inventory time. The context for this card is, in a way, the time of year.

All things considered, I think this card is telling us it is inventory time.

If the part about clearance sales and mickey mouse umbrellas appeals to you, then yes, maybe it is time to clean and clear and let go, as is traditional at new years, including next week’s lunar new year.

Happy Year of the Tiger by the way.

I see a greater energy flowing toward the inventory part. It is a very introspective energy, again it feels similar to the Hermit energy. Today feels like a good time to stop, take a deep breath and take account. What is the realistic situation around you? What are your hopes and aspirations, really. When you dig down to the root of it all, what is the cause, what the reason behind what you hope and dream and do. What resources do you have at hand? What seeds do you need to plant? What seeds do you need obtain to plan to plant later when spring comes?

It’s not a time to beat up on yourself for falling short of goals. But it may be time to make new ones. Sometimes you have to count your ducks before you worry about getting them in a row.

A deep breath and a little mental quiet time can help figure it all out.

Thank you again for reading, watching and listening. See you at the next sip!